Former RCMP Corporal Benjamin (Monty) Robinson has had his share of troubles, including a conviction two years ago for obstruction of justice, after a motor vehicle accident that saw him drink, then drive his truck into a young motorcyclist, killing him.

Mr. Robinson was also the senior Mountie in charge the night distraught Polish traveller Robert Dziekanski was dropped by a junior RCMP officer’s Taser at the Vancouver International Airport. Mr. Dziekanski died as a result. The October 2007 incident was caught on videotape, and a public inquiry was called to examine the matter, with retired judge Thomas Braidwood presiding.

Mr. Robinson is no longer a police officer. But his legal travails aren’t over. He is accused of perjury, of lying in testimony he gave while giving testimony under oath at the Braidwood inquiry in March 2009. The three other RCMP officers who attended the airport scene are similarly accused.

The officers have all denied getting together before the inquiry and making up bogus versions of events. Proving they did will be no easy matter, and in fact, one of the officers, Constable Bill Bentley, was found not guilty of perjury after being tried last year in B.C. Supreme Court. The Crown has appealed the trial judge’s verdict in that case.

Lawyers acting for B.C.’s Criminal Justice Branch now have Mr. Robinson in their sights. On Thursday, the fourth day of his perjury trial in downtown Vancouver, they called their new star witness.

Vancouver businesswoman Janice Norgard claims that early in 2009, prior to giving their testimony at the Braidwood inquiry, Mr. Robinson and the three other officers involved in Mr. Dziekanski’s death met at her house in Richmond, near Vancouver.

While Ms. Norgard could not put a specific date on the alleged meeting, she told trial judge Nathan Smith that it occurred in either late January or early February, 2009.

The date is significant: None of the officers had testified at the Braidwood inquiry up to that point. The first of the four RCMP officers to appear at the Braidwood inquiry was Constable Brian Rundel. His testimony began Feb. 23, 2009. He was followed by Const. Bentley; then Const. Kwesi Millington; and then Mr. Robinson, whose testimony concluded March 25, 2009.

If Ms. Norgard is correct and the four officers did meet inside her house prior to their appearances before Mr. Braidwood, it could reasonably lead to suspicions they did discuss the inquiry, when they claim they had not. And that could bolster the Crown’s allegations of perjury.

Just as important, however, is this: Ms. Norgard says she didn’t arrange the alleged meeting, she didn’t participate in it, and she doesn’t know what was discussed.

Ms. Norgard told the court that she was, at the time of the alleged meeting, preparing to negotiate a legal separation from her then-common-law spouse, Brian Dietrich. He is Const. Bentley’s cousin.

The estranged couple still co-owned the Richmond house. Ms. Norgard lived there full-time; Mr. Dietrich apparently came and went.

He asked Ms. Norgard if she would allow Const. Bentley and the three other officers to meet in the house. She recalls giving her consent, not thinking there could be repercussions later.

A day or two later, the four officers arrived. Ms. Norgard recalled greeting them, and shaking hands with Mr. Robinson. The officers sat a large table in her kitchen, Ms. Norgard testified; meanwhile, she went upstairs to work in her home office. “I did not stay and listen to the meeting,” she told the court. She does not recall seeing Mr. Dietrich with the officers in the kitchen.

After about an hour, she went back to the kitchen for some coffee. The officers were still sitting at the table. Ms. Norgard recalled making a “lighthearted wisecrack” about her ex-partner before returning to her office upstairs. Another hour passed. The officers left, she recalled, and that was it.

She thought nothing more of the alleged encounter until she read of Const. Bentley’s acquittal last year, how his trial had not heard of any meeting among the four officers. “I realized I had evidence,” Ms. Norgard told the court. So she came forward to special prosecutors working for the Crown, and then to police.

Mr. Robinson’s defence lawyer suggested in cross-examination Thursday that Ms. Norgard’s timing was off, that the meeting, if it did happen, took place in May 2009, after the officers had testified at the Braidwood inquiry. “No, that’s not true,” Ms. Norgard replied. Her testimony ended and she left the courtroom.

Will her evidence be enough to convince the court that the accused, Mr. Robinson, colluded with the other officers, and later committed perjury? On its own, probably not. But the trial continues.